The
quiet moment backstage was tense in a way that none of the staff had ever felt
before, not with An Café, at least. It was the day before a concert and the band
was there mainly for equipment checks. Their vocalist and tour add-on
singer/roadie were rendered rather irrelevant by the situation and the pair had
been sitting quietly, giggling over something or other on an iPhone’s tiny
display, for about an hour when the staff noticed that something had changed.
Rather
than the quiet and calm the staff were used to feeling in the bubble around
Miku and Riri on days like this, the atmosphere was tense and confused.
“Well,
that was different,” Riri commented flatly, puzzled.
Beside
her, Miku shifted uncomfortably. He’d known it had been different, he’d intended it to be different. But he
hadn’t known Riri would comment on it so directly; though he should have,
considering that it was Riri he was talking about. Even so, Miku wasn’t about to
simply come clean with it all.
“What
are you talking about? We’ve kissed a thousand times before,” he mentioned.
“Hell, we’ve kissed a dozen times today!”
Riri
nodded slowly. Their backstage fanservice was a huge hit with the fans, and by
now it was so ordinary to them that it was a stranger feeling to not kiss a few times every hour or so.
But Riri was adamant, “Well, that one was different.”
She
didn’t quite understand it. She’d been friends with Miku for so long now; she’d
been a roadie with An Café from the beginning, and now she was something of a
permanent fixture within the band itself. Riri didn’t understand why she was
suddenly feeling all bothered and tingly, it was like the excitement she felt
when she was about to go off with Miku on an unauthorized exploratory mission
of the deepest level of the sub-stage . . . only without the adventure part.
This was just a regular, boring, afternoon, and yet her heart was fluttering
high in her throat and her head was buzzing with anxiety like she was standing back stage before a show and the lights had just gone up.
Sharing
a couch on an afternoon, giggling over funny pictures or stupid videos, turning
in for a kiss every time a camera pointed in their direction . . . it was all
so typical for Miku and Riri. Miku had already kissed Riri a few times that
day, as his normal goofy self. He’d kissed her nose, and her ear, and her
forehead, and her lips; and then he’d kissed
her.
Onstage,
offstage; their fanservice was some of the most consistent and intense in the
industry, even as it wasn’t the slightest bit lewd. Riri should have been
completely used to kissing Miku, in every way. But this time it had been
different.
This
time Miku had seen a chance to pretend for a few moments that it was all real,
that it wasn’t just fanservice anymore. He’d heard stories of successful
relationships in the business that had started out as fanservice and then
changed into something more. He’d wanted it, and for just a second he pretended
he had it. And now here he was trying not to implode under Riri’s intense and
confused stare.
He
couldn’t just sit by as Riri questioned the feeling. Miku wanted more than
anything to avoid making her feel awkward around him in even the slightest way.
He wouldn’t be able to stand it if she grew even more distant from him because
he’d taken a second to pretend she was close.
At
the same time, he couldn’t apologize. If he admitted that he knew this kiss wasn’t like normal ones,
that he knew why it wasn’t the same,
he may as well simply admit that he had feelings for Riri. It would come out
with the explanation; there would be no avoiding it anymore. All the reasons he
had for not telling her kept him
silent on apologizing, particularly the fear that it would drive her away.
That
only left him with one option to fix things. Taking a deep breath to calm
himself down quickly, Miku leaned in abruptly for another kiss. He lingered
just as he had before, but it was the detached sort of pause he took on stage
rather than the sentimental one he’d taken only moments ago. Pulling back a few
inches, Miku gave Riri a quizzical look. “How was that? Still weird?”
Riri
frowned, more confused than ever. “No, that one felt normal.”
“Maybe
you’re just getting sick or something,” Miku replied with a shrug. “If you give
me a cold, I’m never kissing you again.”
This
at last got Riri to smile. “If you never kiss me again, Cafekko will riot,” she
said, laughing. She brushed aside all of her concerns about the strangeness of
the kiss. She was always happiest when she was with Miku; nothing else mattered
to her when they were together. If something about that changed, she wasn’t
sure she could take it. Right now she was
with Miku, and nothing else, not even the strange kiss that made her stomach do
giddy flips, mattered to her.